Posted
by
simoniker
on Monday November 10, 2003 @05:06PM
from the bestest-mostest dept.

Justen writes "The Independent Television Commission has quietly banned Apple from airing an advertisement (in QuickTime here) for the Power Mac G5 in the UK. The Committee says that, prior to the initial broadcast of the ad, it was critical of the assertion that the Power Mac G5 is "the world's fastest, most powerful personal computer." However, Apple supplied what was asserted to be "fair and even" data, based partially on SPEC benchmarks, which "substantiated" Apple's claims and "satisfied" the concerns of their "IT expert." However, the Committee says some "viewers complained that the advertising was misleading," and thus, after an investigation, it reversed its original decision. The Committee has now decided that the ad "should not be re-shown in its current form." Conspiracy theorists take note, Apple's sales in the UK are up 36%, so far, this year."

I know that, I run a dual Xeon System. The fact that you and I (not to mention other computer geeks) have these systems and probably use them as personal systems, does not make them "personal computers".

Going to dell.com and looking under home, or students, you won't find dual processor systems. The same is true of almost every other x86 vendor. Apple on the other hand markets it's dual processor systems to home users.

Except for the fact that I can go to a newegg and buy a dual processor mother boards from a list that mixes them in with single processor mother boards. Now, are you contending that sites like newegg do not cater heavily to personal users?

The enthusiast/do-it-yourself market throws a wrench in advertisment-based categories. Instead, price and capabilities become the things to look at, not what some.jpg image with an href tag says on the internet. Under those metrics, if the G5 is a personal computer, so

But that mid-sized sedan cannot, in fact, have the body of an SUV nor can it only have two doors. There are specifications that classify cars as a sedan. Any car meeting those specs is a sedan regardless of marketing.

You say that you cannot cite a different market segment, but I am not doing that. I'm looking at people who want to spend $2000-3000 (or $4000, still in the range of a G5) for a computer that will run a wide and flexible range of software applications. Whether you call a machine in that range a personal computer or a workstation is neither here nor there as they perform the same function at the same cost. The link you clicked when you bought them does not change what they are.

And again, Apple does feel that it is fair for them to cite a workstations in their ads, so they themselves were the first ones to open this door: http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/

Under the law, luxury car is >= $40,000 in the US. You get more tax on it. Yes, price has everything to do with market segment, and it's not determined by advertising but by, get this, THE MARKET. This is why you don't see dual processor machines advertised for home use, because they're too expensive and for the one segment that would spend the money (gamers) dual processors can even be a hinderance. So, PC makers adapted their advertising to fit the market. Despite this, the people who need the power fo

I just did some surfing, for $750 you can buy a bare frame with motherboard and PSU that will take dual 3.2 MHz Xeon processors. It should be possible to fully kit out the machine for $3K all in, even if you go for insane amounts of RAM and a high end video card.

And yes, $3K is definitely a personal machine. Its the same as Apple want for their G5.

The slight of hand here is that Apple is classifying the competition as being something different. Basically the Apple definition of PC seems to be 'any compu

Since when was any "big iron" a personal computer, eh? How often have you seen a Cray for sale at CompUSA or Time?

People made the same argument about Apple claiming it was the first 64-bit personal computer: "I have an Ultra 5 right here on my desk", but a Sun is not a personal computer, neither is an RS/6000, ad nauseum.

And remember, in the USA, "the fastest" really means "as fast as the competition." As long as all three brands of washing powder clean as well as each other they are the "the best".

So, seven people have replied to you now, saying that Crays and IBMs aren't "personal computers".

Now, see, I'm above that. Adding an eighth such statement would only serve to increase the clutter and confusion. It's become accepted that we/.ers don't read the articles, but I don't want to shatter the illusion that we actually read each other's comments.

So, just letting you know that, uhm, I'm not going to do that. You're welcome.

Plenty of big iron boxes like Crays and IBM are obviously more powerful machines. The ad contains a blatently FALSE sataement.

Apparently extreme truth in advertising is necessary to not confuse the English mind. The ad clearly states "The worlds fastest, most powerful, personal computer."

Where the hell did you get the idea that "big iron boxes like Crays and IBM" are personal computers?

In the US, superlatives are OK, as by some measure something can be the most, best, or greatest. The problem is when some product is advertised with comparatives. A product can be the best, but just better requires irrefutable proof.

They said fastest and most powerful, and by the SPEC benches they submitted, it is. They didn't say the G5 is faster than a Dell dual Xeon 3.0 running XP or a HP Pavilario running Red Hat because this type of apples to oranges comparison would require specific results and would throw off the simplicity of the advertisement.

Anyone who takes the claims of a twelve word advertisement as gospel is a retarded idiot who shouldn't be allowed to buy anything more expensive than a pack of bubble gum. If this is the situation in England, then I truly feel sorry for the few intelligent people who are trapped there and have to be protected by this type of "truth in advertising" laws.

What a shame such "integrity" doesn't actually extend to anything but a very few "unpopular" ads. How many people who complained about this ad were "that guy".

You all know the one I'm talking about. The guy you knew in middle school who hated Macs for no apparent reason. The one who would crow about bad financial reports while you were just trying to eat your Jello. Or maybe it's a "tech" guy you know who can't understand why anyone would use a Mac. "Windows is everywhere, it's clearly better" he'll say. Or "It's good enough, who cares about using anything else, Macs suck".

There is an astounding amount of vitriol between Windows zealots and Apple (and of course Apple zealots and Microsoft). I find it difficult to credit this ad's banishment in the UK to "integrity in advertising". Instead I'd chalk it up to "caving to zealotry" on the part of the politicos.

So far the only disagreeable zealotry I've found was one guy the pro Wintel side where many counterexamples were returned with profanity. I often wish computer zealots would get a grip, but man that one needed a padded cell.

You all know the one I'm talking about. The guy you knew in middle school who hated Macs for no apparent reason.

Yeah, his name was Fred.:p

Seriously though, I find it a little unsettling that someone would jump on Apple for this reason. My understanding is that the Brits are a practical, well-educated people. I don't think they need to be told to take advertisements with a grain of salt.

It was pulled because it was at best misleading (there are PCs that have comparable performance to a G5 at the same price, even before it was released) and at worst, it is a bare faced lie. Zealotry has nothing to do with it I'm afraid. I own a Mac and a PC and I considered the claim highly dubious even as soon as it was made. It was doubly dubious in fact that it was touted as a 64-bit machine, failing to point out that nearly all of the OS and all of the software was still 32-bit rendering the claim rather specious and misleading.

Apple have a long and illustrious track record of stretching the truth and this time they stepped over. I don't see what the fuss is. If they can't make claims are backed up by impartial facts and reality they deserve to be yanked every time.

It's pretty common knowledge that benchmark results depend in large part on who runs them. Apple ran some tests (carefully selected, no doubt) which did show the G5 was superior to everything on those tests. I'm not surprised, it's a VERY fast computer.

But sure, if you used a different compiler on the PC, or if you ran a different set of tests, the PC could well be faster on those tests.

Does that mean that Apple's claims are blatantly false and misleading? I don't really think so. It's a marketing spin on something that's true in some (but not all) cases.

While some Apple fans may consider this censorship, personally I applaud the enforcement of standards in advertising.

If standards were forced for truth-in-advertising in the U.S., we'd not only never hear about the G5 being the fastest computer, we'd also not hear about how much we can do for so little from Microsoft. We'd also stop having the stupid claims in oversized truck and SUV ads, diet pills, etc.

No no no, the ads were only meant to convey what using XP *feels like*. Continue using it for a extended period, and you'll be getting out-of-body experiences of flying in no time. You might even see a bright light at the end of a tunnel, and be transported to a glowing, happy place full of men in purple butterfly suits...

If the standards were enforced, there'd be a severe shortage of ad revenue for television programs.

Or, maybe, people would trust the messages delivered through advertisements more knowing advertizers cannot get away with flat out lies and half-truths. In effect, such increased trust would bring a greater value to an advertizing dollar, and, hence, increased use of the medium.

Man, I hated Requiem for a Dream. (And Hey, moderator, it's NOT off topic if you understand the movie reference.) I hate it when I leave the theatre feeling dead tired because it was nothing but depression the whole way through and I had to fight to stay conscious.

The ITC isn't always correct. It is merely the body which takes an "official" view based on its assessment of the world to date and has power to act accordingly. This is roughly akin to some federal US government organisation banning something on the grounds it thinks it's harmful or somehow misleading, regardless of whether you think it's OK.

While I think the ITC has a function in clear-cut cases, it's questionable whether it should take action in situations that are open to debate or subject to many vari

I don't know if it'd really help much. The US advertising industry is remarkably complex and convoluted, partially to avoid being responsible for much of what they say. If you look closely, a huge number of them simply imply rather than come out and say something about the product, or twist events around to represent their product in ways that won't be applicable for the average user. Diet pills are a good example. A lot of them use normally fit or skinny people who've been recently bed ridden for for time,

The next time you watch TV ads, take note of the wording of their claims. It's usually something very vague, or followed by small print / fast talking disclaimer. People have gotten used to this.

Apple, on the other hand, blatently lied, saying their new G5 was "the worlds fastest, most powerful personal computer". They didn't say it was faster at a certain task, nor did they even mention it requires a unique OS and unique software. To 90% of the population, a Personal Computer is an x86 box running MS Wind

The most blatent example of weird ad wording, IMHO, was the Hostess Cupcakes ad several years ago. Mom gives the kids some cupcakes and says to the camera, "I like to know that my kids are getting a nutritional snack when they come home from school."

Nutritional? She must have meant "nutritious," right? How can they possibly claim that Hostess Cupcakes are nutritious? But wait - when the ad company is spending big bucks to shoot an ad, wouldn't they just reshoot the scene if the actress blows the line? One

But seriously folks truth-in-advertising laws are a very good thing... see Niven's known world series for some good speculation on what might happen in a world where lying advertisers are put to death...

I remember learning on a tour of Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory that in the UK, one cannot advertise anything that cannot be _PROVEN_. IIRC, Ben and Jerry's had to rename one of their flavors from something like "World's Best Ice Cream" to something else.

Someone (possibly even CAMRA was it?? - must have been a very off day) once complained about the Heineken ads, on the grounds that it was not true that it "refreshed" some of "the parts other beers cannot reach" as illustrated on the advertisements.

The complaint was thrown out as being daft, because it was perfectly clear that you weren't supposed to believe the advertisements in the first place.

No, but you can't lay claim to something that is objectively proven by measurable criteria. Taste is subjective, speed is not.

Of course, what counts as measurable criteria is decided by the ITC. Hence the complaints; although the ITC is incredibly powerful when it wants to be. Case in point - it can ban Apple from its second most lucrative market, even though this is a relatively small country in population terms.

"Taste's great" or "delicious" is subjective though, it doesn't have to be proven, unless it tastes like dog shit in which the ITC might have rights to stop them saying it. What the ITC don't like is unproven things stated as fact. So "The Ultimate Driving Machine" is OK for BMW, but if they said "World's fastest car" it isn't.

Sure, we all realise that they don't tell the whole truth. The problem is that advertising also works on the subconsious level. Your brain uses a vast database to determine your response to any stimulus. Unfortunatly, that database is polluted with "information" from adverts. We find it next-to-impossible to differentiate between real knowledge and implanted knowledge.

Don't believe me? Take a look at your shopping trolley next time you go grocery shoppin

I don't think any particular computer can be considered "the fastest in the world." Each architecture is designed such that one will always outshine the other in a specific set of functions. Apple may be faster in benchmark X, while Intel is faster in benchmark Y, while AMD is faster in benchmark Z, etc. etc. Apple does have some validity to their claim, but so would Intel and AMD if they were to announce themselves as the fastest in the world to.

That's after the fact though. Companies will always proclaim their products as "the best, the fastest, the strongest." It's a fact of marketing- what company would say "Our products are mediocre, behind X and Y" and expect decent sales?

Dear ITC, please ban ads from the following companies for over-the-top claims:

BMW - "The Ultimate Driving Machine". Yeah, says who? I happen to like the Lexus better. I haven't seen evidence from any independent rating agencies to prove this.

UPS - "Moving at the speed of bussiness". I have a copy of my physics text in front of me, and the speed of business is not a well-known constant. I haven't seen any independent ratings studying the speed of business and whether UPS can actually keep up.

Guiness - "Guiness is good for you". Right then, next.

Coca Cola - "Coke is it" What is it and how do we really know that Coke is it? Again, independent review is needed to see what 'it' really is, and whether, in fact, Coke is it or not it.

Burger King - "We do it your way". No they don't. My way is devoid of entrails, non-wilted lettuce, and with a proper roll that is very much not like a sponge, so Burger King is misrepresenting 'my way'. They do it one of their ways, but not at all my way.

British Airways - "The worlds favorite airline". Right, everyone in the world just loves British Air, especially for the cuisine. That's why Lufthansa gets such a bad rap.

Acura - "The True Definition of Luxury. Yours." I've never once spoken with anybody at Acura, and I don't much know that I've ever reflected on the true definition of luxury, so malarky.

I wonder how long till they ban IBM's Linux Ad [ibm.com] once they discover that Linux is not an 8-year-old boy?

But wait, there is more. I have installed Windows2003 on one of my computers, and contrary to Microsoft's TV ads, it didn't save me 5 cents per business transaction. I was hoping to make a killing on that.

In UK, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter is simply known as I Swear It's Not Butter!

In Norway we have similar rules: You cannot air commercial claiming something that might be false.

That means you cannot say your price is cheaper or faster or whatevre unless we are talking about to totally identical products. We are not here. The processor in the mac is totally different from a processor from AMD, Intel, Sun, etc. I can guarantee that if you compare a totally specialized processor for only one single operation, then that processor might be faster than the G5 processor in that particular field.It will then be false to say the processor used in the G5 is faster, even though the other only was faster on lets say integar calculations...

"Hi, were sorry, but you can't state anything factual any of your commercials without including cited studies that have no contradiction, error bars on your statistics, and be sure to use guarded language before everything."

Since, after all, anything that has a type-1 error (everything that involves statistics)/might/ be false.

Your comments are completely off point. Lets take you arguement and parallel it with something else, say for example cars. Would a commercial from Dodge be pulled because it claims to have built the fastest factory street-legal cars? By your standards it would simply because it doesn't have the same engine as the Honda or Mitsubishi. Would an ad from Chevrolet be banned by stating their Silverado has the most torgue of any other factory half-ton pickup? By your standards it would because they don't use

In Norway we have similar rules: You cannot air commercial claiming something that might be false

I think I prefer the US model (being a native, that's probably to be expected.) In the UK/Norway model, no car could be 'the fastest car', since it would have to be fastest at ALL distances, terrain, etc. Yeah, it's more accurate, but the annoying picky accuracy of grammar nazis.

Other banned ads included Burger King for claiming to have the best tasting fries, Ford for claiming to have the smoothest-running automobile, and Wal-Mart for claiming to have low prices everyday.

In the US, we have a term called 'puffery', which refers to advertising that is clearly hyperbole, and is so outrageous that the average man-on-the-street (not your gullible aunt) would not believe it. Puffery is perfectly legal, which is why you can freely advertise "greatest fries in the world!"
However, to cl

makes a lot of lousy decisions, but it's usually better than if no decisions were made at all.

Adverts should be held to certain degrees of honesty and integrity. In the US, you can (almost) say what you like, and get away with it. It's very rare that anyone's disciplined in any way, shape or form for misleading or deceptive practices, even when it's blatantly obvious fraud of the consumer is intended.

In England, a few hundred complaints is usually enough to spark an ITC investigation into wrongful advertising. However, they're slow, beaurocratic, and often act in ways which gives the product and the misleading claims far more publicity.

Nonetheless, they do some good. When a rogue advert is found and stopped, it does help bring a touch of reality to the industry. People tend to be a bit more skeptical, a bit more suspicious of claims that seem too good to be true. Which is good! Because it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Here is one of those instances that I'd like each country to borrow a bit from the other. I'd like to see more free speech protection in the UK, but I'd also like to see commercial speech better regulated in the US.

(Commercial speech should not have the same protections as other forms of speech. It should be protected, especially where it is true, but it shouldn't be absolved of all responsibility - it has a lot more weight and power than just some person you happen to meet, and that weight and power needs to be accompanied by responsibility.)

Mindless Note: I honestly believe that the UK and the US sit on different halves of understanding how to make a civilization that can respect itself and others, while remaining strong, free and a damn good place to be. I don't pretend to know how to fit those halves together, or what bits of which are the good bits. All I know is that both countries achieve a degree of happiness in areas that the other can't, that both have strengths the other doesn't, and that on the level of individuals, the wisest are the ones who learn from others.

' Apple may have had their ads pulled...but look at all the free media advertizing the story generated;-)"

I was waiting for someone to pull the PR aspect of this out of the mix!

Welcome to the age where PR is becoming more credible/cost effective than advertising. It hasn't happened yet, but it will.

I work in the advertising/marketing/PR industry, and I can tell you something that I'm sure many have realized already. Advertising is losing effectiveness (thanks to spam/bannerads/popups) and is losing cred

Last year the fastest cheapest processor we could find for our numerical simulation work was an Intel Gateway 3GHz, which cost about $2500, and has been wildly successful in attracting users away from older Sun workstations, around which it runs rings and Linux.

This year, we will upgrade to a dual processor system, with an eye toward eventual clustering of larger numbers of them. In comparing dual Xeons with dual G5s, we find that the test numbers are a tossup (Macworld reports PCs are faster; while PCmag resports Macs are a bit faster, which they call "about even"). One thing that isn't much discussed is the big jump in bus speed for the G5, which approaches 1GHz, compared with a typical 400MHz for Intel systems. This should be a boon to I/O intensive jobs.

Surprisingly, the deciding factor may be price: we get bids of about $4k for a dual Xeon system that is equipped comparably with a dual G5 that bids at $3k. So if the top Macs aren't definitively faster, they are at least certifiably cheaper! Who knew?

But Apple would clearly prefer to be fastest rather than cheapest, and hence their advertising approach stresses speed for the money rather than money for the speed. One person's miles per gallon is another's liters per 100km...

This continuing competition is clearly a win-win situation for consumers. May it continue...

This isn't a first for Apple in the UK. When they first used the PowerPC they advertised it as the first RISC based home computer. That might have been true in the US, but in the UK the ARM based Acorn Archimedes had already been out for a while, so they were forced to pull that ad.

Maybe you should take a minute and actually look at what _you_ are comparing. The scores quoted by Apple for the Intel machines explicitly stated that GCC was used as the compiler to remove the compiler as a variable. The published scores on SPEC's website do not. You are comparing cows to telephone poles.

Now, comparing G5 results with GCC to x86 results with GCC is pretty fair when you are comparing the hardware only, not the software. That is what they claimed to be showing.

Wrong. The only way to compare the hardware is to use the best compiler for each: intel on x86 and IBM's compiler on G5

Close! The way to compart the hardware is to use the compiler recommended by the Manufacturer for each product. Intel, for performance, would reccomend their own compiler [intel.com] while IBM, who contributed the G5 code generator to the GCC project, would recommend theirs (in this case, GCC.)

Using "GCC" for both isn't fair because the code generators and optimizers are completely different. The o

It's not the number of complaints that's important, it's the nature of the complaint. One complaint would have been sufficient. It's not a popularity contest.
As a silly and extreme example, if one person goes into a police station and accuses you of being a murderer the police will investigate. They won't wait until they get 100 complaints about you killing people.
If you do something wrong it's still wrong regardless of how many people complain.

Why is it that some government agency can say what some broadcaster puts on the air.

The ITC is not a government agency. From the ITC website [itc.org.uk]:

As our name suggests, we're independent of the Government and of the broadcasters. We are funded by fees from our licensees, of which there are around 300 who between them hold nearly 600 licences.

When an advertisement lies, at least in the US, you have the right to sue for false advertisement.

In the UK, as you would expect, if you have been wronged in the eyes of the law you can sue. If you don't like the ITC's decision and you have good grounds, sue. We do however try to avoid the US disease of the lawsuit culture.

Wait a second, they are all controled by the ITC.

Half right. All commerical stations are controlled by the ITC. The BBC is self-regulating.

Suing is never easy or risk free. You can win and still be stuck with enormous legal costs, or you might be awarded costs, maybe. Or you lose, in which case you would lose big. In any case the lawyers win. And suing a well-healed corporation is even more risky, they can afford expensive lawyers that are more likely to win (if nothing else), or they can just buy you off (in which case the advert stands and other, less knowing people will get rippe

Yeah, but one gets the feeling that the folks at Virginia Tech haven't grasped what a computer is for.

To help keep the ambitious job on schedule, "we used an assembly line of volunteer students to unpack computers and perform many of the routine but time consuming functions." Patricia Arvin, associate vice president of information systems and computing,... [emphasis mine]

It's a civilized response from a society that still believes there are other centers of authority than merely business.

Changes of that happening here in the US are next to nil, as we cling to the shibboleth of deregulation even when it brings us crisis after crisis in energy, health, stocks, banking, industry, etc. If your Blair keeps studying his lessons well, you can have our troubles, too.